1. Field of the Technology
The present disclosure relates generally to communications which involve mobile communication devices operating in wireless communication networks, and more particularly to communication techniques involving the temporary interruption of mobile data transfer while a mobile communication device is participating in a voice call.
2. Description of the Related Art
Mobile communication devices (MCDs) have the ability to place and receive voice calls, as well as to send and receive various user data to and from other communication devices (e.g. telephones, servers, personal computers (PCs), etc.), through wireless communication networks. For example, MCDs may be configured to wirelessly receive copies of e-mail messages which are received and stored in email accounts on e-mail servers in communication networks. To accomplish this, many different host servers are utilized across the country and beyond to retrieve copies of e-mail messages from the many different e-mail servers for their intermediate delivery to a primary relay network. The primary relay network is communicatively coupled to a plurality of wireless communication networks and used to deliver the copied e-mail messages to MCDs through any one of these wireless networks.
In Third Generation (3G) networks or the like, MCDs are capable of communicating such data while maintaining voice calls. Depending on the network or configuration, however, voice calls may be dropped while communicating such background data. In some networks, the reason is that such simultaneous voice and data communication requires the network to adopt, depending on configuration and load, varying dynamic radio bearer configurations and procedures which results in an increased signaling load in the Radio Network Controller (RNC). A common limitation of infrastructure vendors' RNC implementation is that operations are processed serially. Such serial processing can result in the introduction of delays in the processing of operations which are vital for the maintenance and good performance of communication. The communication of such background data is normally transparent to users; therefore, the reason for the voice call failure is not even apparent to the user.
Accordingly, there is a resulting need for improved methods and apparatus for increasing voice call performance for MCDs operating in such networks.